Tuesday, October 07, 2014

Decline and fall of Syrian Jewry

Useful history of the Jewish community of Syria from its Biblical origins to the present day at the Aish website. Syrian Jewry's most notable contributions were the Aleppo Codex and their unique tradition of liturgical singing. (With thanks: Michelle)

Elders of the Syrian community, late 19th century

Syria boasts
one of the world’s oldest Jewish communities and one of the world’s
richest and most storied Jewish cultures. Syria has a history that dates
back to Biblical times, and its Jews have survived the countless
empires that have conquered it. That once thriving community has been
reduced to some 50 members (probably fewer than 20 - ed) that face rampant civil war, repressive
government measures, and limited economic opportunities.

Syrian Jewry’s illustrious past began thousands of years ago during
the time of Ezra the Scribe, who was tasked with appointing judges in
Syria by the Persian king Xerxes. Jews gained significant privileges
under the Greeks and Romans, and sent lavish offerings to the Second
Temple in Jerusalem. The Jewish sages held Syria and its Jewish
population in such high regard that they applied the same land laws to
Syria as to Israel: as it says in the Mishnah, “He who buys land in
Syria is as one who buys in the outskirts of Jerusalem” (Hallah, 4:11).

The main center in ancient Jewish Syria was Damascus, now the capital
of the Syrian Arab Republic and quite possibly the oldest continuously
inhabited city in the world. Damascus is referenced in the Hebrew Bible,
as well as the Talmud and Dead Sea Scrolls, as Dammesek. King
David campaigned against the Arameans there, and the city was later
conquered by the Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans. As in the rest
of Syria, Jews fared particularly well. Damascus became a major
economic hub in the Levant. According to the sage Resh Lakish, the city
could be one of the “gateways of the Garden of Eden” (Er. 19a).

As the Roman Empire transformed into the Christian Byzantine Empire,
it found itself constantly at war with the Persians over the possession
of Syria. Eventually, Persia conquered Syria and Israel with the help of
Jewish supporters who had resented the exorbitant privileges Christians
enjoyed under Byzantine rule.
In 635, Syria fell under the control of the Arabs, who had recently
united under the banner of Islam. The Muslim Umayyad empire chose
Damascus as its capital and the city prospered once again. Many Jews
held high positions during the early years of the Muslim empire
including Manasseh ibn Ibrahim al-Qazzāz who was in charge of finances
during the Shi’ite Fatimid era of the late 10th century C.E. Damascus
became a center of Talmudic study, establishing an academy that had
close ties with its counterparts in the land of Israel.

The second major Jewish center in Syria was Aleppo. Jewish activity
there dates back to the 4th century C.E. with the building of the
Kanisat Mutakal, the oldest Jewish structure in Aleppo. As Aleppo became
the center of Jewish learning in Syria, several notable figures
including Saadiah Gaon and R. Joseph b. Aknin (the Rambam’s disciple)
made their way there from Israel to see the Aleppo community’s erudition
and first-hand. They could not have been disappointed for the Jewish
scholars of Aleppo were responsible for producing one of Judaism’s
single most important documents and Syrian Jewry’s single greatest
achievement: the Aleppo Codex.

The Codex is the most authoritative and
accurate of the Masoretic Texts which form the basis for the modern
Hebrew text of the Bible. The manuscript was safeguarded in the basement
of the Central Synagogue of Aleppo for many centuries until the
anti-Semitic riots of 1947 when more than half of the Codex was
destroyed. What remains of it now lies in Jerusalem’s Shrine of the Book
along with the Dead Sea Scrolls. Syrian Jews, particularly those in
Aleppo, also gained acclaim as musical innovators, developing a unique
liturgical tradition known as maqam or melodic pattern. The style
developed in Aleppo now serves as the foundation of contemporary
religious music for the Mizrahi community in Israel.Read article in full

Re the Aleppo Codex. It was produced in Tiberias [10th century] in Israel and was brought to Egypt before going to Aleppo. Further, the fire set in the synagogue in Aleppo did not destroy the codex or even half of it. That is another story.

The school of scribes and copyists in Tiberias produced many copies of the Scriptures besides the Aleppo Codex. They set the textual tradition which is mainly followed today.

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Introduction

In just 50 years, almost a million Jews, whose communities stretch back up to 3,000 years, have been 'ethnically cleansed' from 10 Arab countries. These refugees outnumber the Palestinian refugees two to one, but their narrative has all but been ignored. Unlike Palestinian refugees, they fled not war, but systematic persecution. Seen in this light, Israel, where some 50 percent of the Jewish population descend from these refugees and are now full citizens, is the legitimate expression of the self-determination of an oppressed indigenous, Middle Eastern people.This website is dedicated to preserving the memory of the near-extinct Jewish communities, which can never return to what and where they once were - even if they wanted to. It will attempt to pass on the stories of the Jewish refugees and their current struggle for recognition and restitution. Awareness of the injustice done to these Jews can only advance the cause of peace and reconciliation.(Iran: once an ally of Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran is now an implacable enemy and numbers of Iranian Jews have fallen drastically from 80,000 to 20,000 since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Their plight - and that of all other communities threatened by Islamism - does therefore fall within the scope of this blog.)